"No, I am not going to drown him. My wife is having a new spring suit
made to harmonize with Beauty, as she is pleased to call the disgusting
little brute, and I am on my way to a dry-goods store to match him for
half a yard more of material."
Ladies will pay as much as ten dollars a week for the board of a poodle
in summer. And here is a specimen order at the inn wherein his puppyship
is taking his ease:
"Room No. 122.--To the clerk of ---- Hotel: Please send to my room, for
the use of my little pet 'Watch,' a choice porter-house steak, cooked
rare, and two chicken-wings, and charge to account of Mrs. ----."
But it is not always practicable to take our "dumb companions" with us
in our travels. Accordingly, the following advertisement is said to have
been recently inserted in the papers:
"Wanted, by a lady, a careful man to look after the house and be company
for her dog during her absence in Europe."
I myself lately witnessed a suggestive scene in a drawing-room car at
the Grand Central Dépôt. A portly old gentleman of opulent appearance
was stepping aboard with his daughter (or wife?), a fine specimen of
Amazonian beauty, accompanied by a third member of the family, a yellow
and dirty-looking little pug with its hair in its eyes. But, alas! the
latter was arrested at the platform, according to rule, and was being
conveyed to the baggage-car. I have no power to picture the blazing
indignation of his devoted mistress, or the eloquent storm with which
she assailed the officials, or the undignified haste and distress of
mind into which the old gentleman was thrown in his part of negotiator
between the contending parties. The lady was inconsolable and
inexorable. She would not go without her beloved. She would _never_
subject him to the discomfort and indignity of the baggage-car. She
would "rather ride in the common car" herself. How the case was settled
I did not see. She left the hateful drawing-room car with her packages
and her papa(?). Whether she abandoned her tour, or went into the
baggage-car to share the shame and sorrow of her poodle, or whether a
compromise was effected in favor of the "common car," I never
ascertained, I trust she was not the lady of Baltimore who last summer
went insane and tried to kill herself on account of the death of her pet
dog.
And this leads me to make a point in favor of dogs, at least so far as
their claim to being "so human" is concerned. There has been supposed to
be nothing more distinctive of human nature than its propensity to
suicide, arising from its capacity, as it rises in civilization and
enlightenment, of finding out that life is not worth living. But a
number of well-authenticated cases have come to my observation which
show that the dog is rapidly learning this supreme accomplishment. A dog
at Warwick, New York, whose master had neglected him for a new-comer,
became morose and sulky, took to watching the railway-trains with great
interest, and one day threw himself under a passing car and was crushed
to death. Another, in Marseilles, whose owner had avoided him from fear
of hydrophobia, and which had been driven from the door of a friend of
his master, ran straight for the river and plunged in, never to rise
till he was dead. A Newfoundland dog on the relief-ship Bear, and two or
three of the Esquimaux dogs belonging to the relief expedition, drowned
themselves deliberately, after showing great depression for several
days. Dr. Lauder Lindsay, in his "Mind in the Lower Animals," tells of a
Newfoundland that, being refused an accustomed outing with the children
and being playfully whipped with a handkerchief, took it so deeply to
heart that he went and drowned himself by resolutely holding his head
under water in a shallow ditch.
But, seriously, it is a nice psychological question whether there is
something human about dogs, or something canine about men. At any rate,
it may well be asked whether it is really the dog-nature which attracts
us, and not rather a somewhat of the human in the brute. For when we see
the dog in the man we are repelled.
The above is undoubtedly the most honorable, if not the most obvious,
reason why the dog has succeeded in winning the companionship, and even
the affection, of so large a portion of mankind. Another reason lies in
the fact that, as a dog, he has been wonderfully improved. There is no
denying that he comes of a bad stock. As already intimated, his "family"
includes, besides himself, the wolf, the fox, and the jackal, with the
hyena as a sort of step-brother. But he has proved himself "the flower
of the family," and, like all flowers, he has been "cultivated" and
developed, differentiated in species, till a grand bench-show will
display all the varieties, from little fluff balls, "small enough to put
in your waistcoat-pocket," to the splendid deerhound, valued at ten
thousand dollars, with his "silver-gray hair, muscular flanks, and calm,
resolute eyes." I shall never forget coming suddenly, in the streets of
Montgomery, Alabama, upon one of the veritable bloodhounds which were
employed once upon a time in tracking fugitive slaves. His dimensions
were beyond all my previous conceptions of the canine race. He impressed
me rather as an institution than an animal. And as he stood across my
path in a statuesque repose, with his red tongue and massive jaws, and a
slumbering fire in his eye, I conceived a new idea and even admiration
of "brute force."
The intelligence of the dog has also been developed, notwithstanding the
smallness of his brain and his natural inferiority in this respect to
many other animals, until he has almost rivalled the feats of the
learned pig and the industrious fleas. His moral character must be
admitted to have shown itself capable of great development, despite the
recent effort of writers like Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson to prove that
he develops chiefly the worst and meanest traits of human nature. His
capacity for hero-worship and his patience under ill usage from the one
who has mastered him are conspicuous. He has a sublime indifference to
that master's moral character, however, being as subservient to Bill
Sykes or Daniel Quilp as to Leatherstocking or Dr. John Brown himself.
This fidelity to me does not imply that he may not be highly
treacherous to others, just as his protective value to me is in
proportion to his savage and perilous possibilities to the not-me.
Therefore I ought not to insist that my lovers must love my dog also. I
should rather estimate their steadfast affection for me all the more on
his account.
It is argued by the dog-haters that we must not judge the whole vast and
varied race of _Canidæ_ from a few exceptional individuals and
highly-cultivated breeds. But it may be retorted that neither are all
men Shakespeares and St. Augustines. The credit is so much the greater
to those of the species which have overcome the disadvantages of a low
and repulsive origin. None the less, however, will a strict veracity of
mind and speech be careful not to generalize too sweepingly from a few
particulars, and also not to make too indiscriminate and imperious a
demand upon other people's enthusiasm. Especially will it be unwise for
the friends of the dog to persist in their attempt to exalt him by
depreciating man, inasmuch as man is the party to be won over to their
way of thinking. Man has, unfortunately, been endowed by his Creator
with a notion of his superiority even to the hound and the terrier, and
naturally winces at the comparison, and is in danger of being thrown to
the other extreme. I myself am able to present these considerations thus
dispassionately as a friend of humanity rather than a foe to caninity;
but all are not favored with a judicial spirit.
I suspect, in fact, that this inclining of our race to these brute
servitors is largely due to the same cause which promotes the love of
"horse-flesh." Man must assert his dominion over the brutes. He wants
some tangible evidence, always beside him and running at his heels, of
his superiority to something. It is a great upholder of his
self-respect. It is so consoling, amid our conscious defeats and
snubbings by a proud and unmanageable world, to have at hand a
fellow-creature, strong enough to tear us in pieces, who will grovel at
our feet, and quail before our eye, and let us laugh at him while he
makes a fool of himself at our bidding. Even the most successful and
superior men find herein a grateful outlet for their surplus
masterfulness.
But I prefer to ascribe the tender and enthusiastic feeling which men
have for their dogs not so much to the merits of the latter as to an
overflowing and supererogatory goodness in the former. The human runs
readily into the humane. Man is, after all, a loving animal, and is
disposed to lavish his affection upon all who come into the right
relation and moral angle with himself. He loves to be munificent as well
as magnificent, and to be the patron of somebody or something. He has no
little magnanimity toward such as put themselves in an abject dependence
upon his honor and justice. He is ready to see all good in those who
come not in competition with himself. He has a fund of generous
enthusiasm which finds too little occupation in the world, and is glad
to find or create an object for it near at hand. So that his dog,
unconsciously to himself, is seen rather in the reflection of his own
light. He clothes him with those amiable qualities which superabound in
his own heart, and attributes to him a fidelity which is really far more
remarkable on his own side.
Dogs are remarkable for their dreaming capacity. A dog never seems to
sleep but he dreams, and very likely is quite unable to distinguish his
waking and sleeping impressions. And is it not altogether probable that
those who have much to do with them catch the infection, so that they
view the canine race through a dream-like medium and as slumbering dogs
are haunted by imaginary flies?
But I fear lest I shall be suspected of having caught at least one
quality of my subject and of following up this scent at a wearisome
length. And yet I have not begun to exhaust my theme, and have hardly
given a glimpse of its many lights and shades. Inasmuch as there is an
excessive tendency just now to show the lights only, it may have been
noticed that I have rather emphasized the shades. Perhaps I shall not
have written in vain if I have succeeded in moderating the present
_kynomania_, surpassing in virulence even the æsthetic craze. The dog is
having his day now,--that is clear. I presume it is the order of nature,
and that we must expect a season in human history when the dog-star will
rage. But it may not be unseasonable to recommend a slight muzzle to the
dog-bitten, especially of the literary _gens_.
F. N. ZABRISKIE.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] By a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Maine, the judges
standing six to one, it was decided that dogs are not to be classed with
domestic animals. The learned Court affirms "that they retain in great
measure their vicious habits, furnish no support to the family, add
nothing in a legal sense to the wealth of the community, and are not
inventoried as property of a debtor or dead man's estate, or as liable
to taxation except under a special provision of the statute; that when
kept it is for pleasure, or, if any usefulness is obtained from them, it
is founded upon the ferocity natural to them, by which they are made to
serve as a watch or for hunting; and that while because of his
attachment to his master, from which arises a well-founded expectation
of his return when lost, the law gives the owner the right of
reclamation, the owner in all other respects has only that qualified
property in them which he may have in wild animals generally."
RENA'S WARNING.
"If anything be anything," said Frederick Brent, "the Pennsylvania
mountains are what Oscar Wilde called them."
"Oh, you miserable agnostic!" exclaimed his friend Professor
Helfenstein. "Can you not, in the face of this so beautiful landscape,
get rid of your eternal subjunctive mood? _If_, indeed!"
The two men had stopped at a high point on the road they had been
traversing, and were looking across a fair and fertile valley, flooded
by the summer-morning sunlight, to the mountains on its western rim.
A slight smile showed Brent's pleasure in arousing his companion's
indignation.
"Well," said he, "my ideas of natural beauty and those of the æsthetic
Wilde may be entirely false; or the whole scene may be an optical
illusion; or--_Rosenduft und Maienblumen_, observe me this lovely
maiden!"
"If anything be anything? You can be positive enough where a pretty girl
is concerned. She _is_ pretty, though, and as _deutsch_ as her ancestors
were a century or two ago, when they left the Rhineland and crossed the
sea. A pure blonde German type. Tacitus would have included her among
the Non-Suevi."
Their attention had been drawn from the scenery by the approach of a
young woman and a little boy. The former was above the medium height,
and was about twenty years old, but the infantile mould of her features
and the innocent look in her large blue eyes gave strangers a
bewildering impression that she was somewhere in the neighborhood of
five. She was charmingly pretty in her way, and her wide-brimmed hat of
dark straw set off to full advantage the pale golden hue of her braided
hair and the delicate purity of her complexion.
Brent could not resist the temptation to accost this mild and grave
young beauty. Stepping forward as she was passing, he lifted his hat,
and said, "Will you be good enough to tell me the way to the nearest
encampment of Indians?"
"Indians?" she repeated, with a timid wonder in the tones of her soft
voice.
"Yes. We are Europeans, travelling in this country, and we should like
to find some Indians who will help us to hunt buffaloes. Are there many
buffaloes near here? We haven't seen any sitting on the branches of the
trees as we came along."
"I don't think buffaloes _could_ get up in the trees," said the girl in
a meekly explanatory manner.
"Why, you don't mean to say that the buffaloes in this country can't
climb, do you?"
"I never saw a buffalo; but I don't _think_ they can."
She looked despairingly at her small brother, who, having not yet
reached the age of six years, was unable to afford any help in deciding
a question in zoology.
"This is very interesting," said Brent, turning toward his companion.
"It seems that American buffaloes are forced to spend all their time on
the ground."
"_Narrheit!_" growled the professor, beginning to walk away.
"Well, I'm very much obliged to you," said Brent. "Good-morning."
Then he followed his friend, who was already descending a hill in the
road.
"Sister Rena, what did that man want still?" asked the little boy.
"I don't know, love," said his sister faintly. Her ideas were in a
hopeless state of confusion, and she was troubled by a fear that a lack
of intelligence had made her seem disobliging.
When Brent overtook the professor, the latter said, "All Englishmen are
ridiculous; and you are a good specimen of the race. Why should you stop
on the public highway and talk nothingness to a harmless girl?"
"All Germans are prejudiced; and Professor Helfenstein is a true
_Deutscher_," answered Brent. "My remarks to the young Non-Sueve no
doubt interested her deeply, and I fancy she will reflect on them, as
Piers Plowman says,--
With inwit and outwit,
Imagynyng and studie."
They were both good walkers, and, though the heat became somewhat
oppressive at noon, they did not halt until they had reached the village
where they intended to pass the night. In this place Helfenstein heard
the Pennsylvania-German dialect spoken to his heart's content. After
dinner he sat on the porch of the inn for several hours, talking to a
number of the indigenes and making copious notes.
When Brent returned from a visit to one of the village stores, he found
him looking over the result of his investigations.
"Will the 'Allgemeine Zeitung' have the benefit of your researches?"
asked the Englishman.
"Most like. The people at home love to have tidings of shoots from the
old German lingual stock. The dialect of this locality is a truly
noteworthy one."
"I heard it spoken just now by the young blossom we met on the road this
morning."
"Does she live here?"
"No. She had driven in to the village to make some purchases. Her father
is one Reinfelter, who tills the soil of his ancestral demesne over
there near the mountains."
"From whom did you learn these facts?"
"From the tradesman with whom she had been talking."
"Will agnosticism let you be absolutely sure his statements are true?"
"No; and even less sure that they are untrue. It seems to me that a vast
amount of credulity is needed for positive unbelief. Do atheists ever
have doubts about anything?"
"We don't sit still and say, '_Quien sabe?_' like you agnostics. When
nobody shall believe or disbelieve, who will _act_?"
"I give it up."
With a look of profound disgust, the professor pocketed his note-book
and went to seek refreshment in the shape of beer.
Notwithstanding the difference in their ways of thinking, these two men
had something in common which furnished a strong bond of union between
them. Helfenstein sometimes said to himself, "Well, if he _is_ a
pitiable doubter, he at least doubts in earnest. This makes him better
than the miserable tric-trac men who are always ready to agree that
black is white, or deny that two and two make four, when it suits their
convenience or interest."
And, in fact, though Brent often paraded his agnosticism merely to draw
forth the professor's scornful comments, he really had a humble and
hopeless consciousness that if truth be visible to any human mind it was
hidden from his. The possession of an ample fortune and the lack of
family ties and active interests in life had fostered his tendency
toward introspection till it became morbid. Now, at the age of thirty,
he had no positive beliefs or aims, and felt the despairing
self-contempt which inspired Hamlet's cry, "What should such fellows as
I do, crawling between earth and heaven?"
Before retiring, the travellers agreed to spend the next day in making
an excursion on foot to the neighboring mountains. But when the hour for
starting arrived, Brent had not risen, and the professor, who allowed
nothing to interfere with his plans if he could help it, set out alone.
A little before sunset he returned, full of enthusiasm over the scenery,
and highly pleased with the people in the farm-houses where he had
stopped.
"They are a good, honest, _kreuzbraves Volk_," he said. "They have kept
the old German home-feeling all unchanged. There is a certain Bärnthaler
over there at the foot of the mountains who is worthy to be a native of
the Fatherland,--a noble-looking fellow, with the lion-front of a young
Marcomannic chief."
"The Marcomanni were a Suevic race, were they not?"
"Yes; I should have known his ancestors were dark-haired Swabians even
if he had not told me so. He is something of a scholar, I should say,
and he seems as true a gentleman as ever lived. What a shame it is that
his good South-German name should have been corrupted into Barndollar!"
"I heard this Barndollar's praises sounded about three hours ago."
"By whom?"
"By the father of Miss Reinfelter, the mild-eyed blonde who had her
doubts about the ability of buffaloes to climb trees. He was here this
afternoon, and we became intimate in five minutes. He told me his
ancestors came from the neighborhood of Heidelberg; and when he heard I
was there last summer his expansive face was illumined with joy. He
answered my questions about the old German settlers intelligently
enough; but he said nobody could tell me as much about such matters as
'Melker Barndollar,' of whom he spoke with 'bated breath. He also
invited me to visit him."
"Shall you accept his invitation?"
"I have fully made up my mind to go; but that doesn't make it certain
that I shall."
"Should you go if he possessed not a pretty daughter?"
"Probably not."
The next morning Brent rode over to the Reinfelter farm. The farm-house
interested him at the first view. It was a quaint old stone building,
with four gables and a slated roof, from the projecting windows in which
the mountain-line could be seen stretching away to the southwest and
growing more and more indistinct until their faint outlines were lost on
the far horizon. Ivy concealed more than half the gray stones from
sight, and fragrant pink roses were blooming against the southern wall,
while thick bushes of flowering jessamine grew on both sides of the
front door.
The visitor received a welcome which made him feel as if he had reached
his own home. He had grown so weary of wandering aimlessly around the
world, and had become so disgusted with conventional forms and
ceremonies, that the peaceful home-like and simple, kindly manners of
these unsophisticated people gave him an agreeable sense of rest and
freedom from restraint.
He allowed himself to be prevailed on to stay until late in the
afternoon; and before his visit ended he circumspectly inquired whether
they would receive him as a boarder. The promptness and pleasure with
which both the farmer and his wife agreed to his proposal showed him
that his fear of giving offence had been entirely groundless.
When he returned to the inn, the professor informed him that on the
succeeding day he was going on to the next county.
"I shall stay in this neighborhood some time longer," said Brent.
"So? What is the especial attraction? The young woman over there where
the mountains stand?"
"Perhaps; but my own motives are about the last things I should attempt
to analyze."
"Well, I expect to come back this way in three months, and, if I find
you here and ready to depart, we can return to New York together."
"Like nearly all other imaginable things, what you state is not
impossible."
Helfenstein went on his way the next morning, and Brent began his
sojourn at the farm-house on the same day.
The burdens of Rena Reinfelter's life immediately became very much more
numerous. The Englishman found an unfailing satisfaction in bewildering
and horrifying her, and tried systematically to find out whether there
was really any limit to her patience and gentleness. He induced her to
go with him to the mountains near at hand, and took every opportunity to
place himself in positions where he was in imminent danger of falling
some hundreds of feet and being dashed to pieces on the rocks. Her
dearly-beloved cat was suddenly lost to sight, and when it reappeared,
uttering meek appeals for sympathy and help, its personal adornments
were as striking as they were varied. He proved to her conclusively that
all cats are utterly incapable of affection, and that their characters
are vicious and treacherous to the last degree. His favorite method,
however, was to begin by asking her some trivial question and then
involve her in a net-work of apparent self-contradictions, which filled
her conscientious soul with anguish and dismay at her own
untruthfulness. Sometimes he felt a little ashamed of these amusements,
and determined to forego them; but the temptation was too great for his
powers of resistance, and he soon began transgressing again.
One morning Rena received a visit from her most intimate friend, Elsa
Barndollar, who was only fifteen years old, but, having spent the
preceding season at a city boarding-school, considered herself a grown
woman with an unusually wide experience. Although passionately devoted
to Rena, she was as fond of teasing her as Brent himself. Yet as soon as
the latter began indulging himself with that diversion, she became
highly indignant, and scornfully betook herself to the garden.
When Rena had followed her thither, she gave vent to her wrath without
restraint.
"That's the most hateful man I ever saw!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, no, Elsa!" said Rena deprecatingly.
"Yes, he is. He's perfectly horrid! What does he mean by teasing you as
if you were a little white kitten, or a green and yellow parrot, or some
other ridiculous thing? I suppose he thinks country-people are all
idiots. I never _did_ see the use of Englishmen, anyhow."